_ T _ jfr'jrX-l 1 I*} 


Id Congress \ 
2d Session J 


SENATE 


\ 


/ Document 
\ No. 473 


THE 

RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE 
TO RULE 


ADDRESS 


BY 

Hon. Theodore Roosevelt 

DELIVERED IN 

CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK CITY, ON 
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 1912, UNDER 
THE AUSPICES OF THE CIVIC FORUM 



PRESENTED BY MR. BRISTOW 
MARCH 28, 1912.—Ordered to be printed 


WASHINGTON 

1919 












B? Of J. 




< c 

< c < 


<»« 





THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE. 


By Theodore Roosevelt. 


[An address at Carnegie Hall, New York City, under the auspices of the Civic Forum, 
Wednesday evening, Mar. 20, 1912.] 

The great fundamental issue now before the Republican Party 
and before our people can be stated briefly. It is. Are the American 
people fit to govern themselves, to rule themselves, to control them¬ 
selves? I believe they are. My opponents do not. I believe in the 
right of the people to rule. I believe that the majority of the plain 
people of the United States will, day in and day out, make fewer 
mistakes in governing themselves than any smaller class or body of 
men, no matter what their training, will make in trying to govern 
them. I believe, again, that the American people are, as a whole, 
capable of self-control and of learning by their mistakes. Our op¬ 
ponents pay lip loyalty to this doctrine; but they show their real 
beliefs by the way in which they champion every device to make the 
nominal rule of the people a sham. 

I have scant patience with this talk of the tyranny of the majority. 
Whenever there is tyranny of the majority, I shall protest against it 
with all my heart and soul. But we are to-day suffering from the 
tyranny of minorities. It is a small minority that is grabbing our 
coal deposits, our water powers, and our harbor fronts. A small 
minority is fattening on the sale of adulterated foods and drugs. It 
is a small minority that lies behind monopolies and trusts. It is a 
small minority that stands behind the present law of master and 
servant, the sVveatshops, and the whole calendar of social and in¬ 
dustrial injustice. It is a small minority that is to-day using our 
convention system to defeat the will of a majority of the people in 
the choice of delegates to the Chicago convention. The only tyran¬ 
nies from which men, women, and children are suffering in real life 
are the tyrannies of minorities. 

If the majority of the American people were in fact tyrannous 
over the minority, if democracy had no greater self-control than 
empire, then indeed no written words which our forefathers put into 
the Constitution could stay that tyranny. 

Xo sane man who has been familiar with the government of this 
country for the last 20 years will complain that we have had too 
much of the rule of the majority. The trouble has been a far differ¬ 
ent one—that, at many times and in many localities, there have held 
public office in the States and in the Nation men who have, in fact, 
served not the whole people, but some special class or special interest. 
I am not thinking only of those special interests which by grosser 
methods, by bribery and crime, have stolen from the people. I am 

145516—19 a 



4 


THE EIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE. 


thinking as much of their respectable allies and figureheads, who 
have ruled and legislated and decided as if in some way the vested 
rights of privilege had a first mortgage on the whole United States, 
while the rights of all the people were merely an unsecured debt. 
Am I OA^erstating the case? Have our political leaders ahvays or 
generally recognized their duty to the people as anything more than 
a duty to disperse the mob, see that the ashes are taken aAvay, and 
distribute patronage? Have our leaders always or generally 
worked for the benefit of human beings, to increase the prosperity 
of all the people, to give to each some opportunity of living decently 
and bringing up his children Avell ? The questions need no answer. 

Noav there has sprung up a feeling deep in the hearts of the people— 
not of the bosses and professional politicians, not of the beneficiaries 
of special privilege—a prevading belief of thinking men that when 
the majority of the people do in fact, as well as theory, rule, then the 
servants of the people will come more quickly to answer and obey, not 
the commands of the special interests, but those of the whole people. 
To reach toward that end the Progressives of the Republican Party 
in certain States have formulated certain proposals for change in the 
form of the State government—certain new “ checks and balances ” 
which may check and balance the special interests and their allies. 
That is their purpose. Noav turn for a moment to their proposed 
methods. 

First, there are the “ initiative and referendum,” which are so 
framed that if the legislatures obey the command of some special 
interest, and obstinately refuse the will of the majority, the majority 
may step in and legislate directly. No man would say that it Avas 
best to conduct all legislation by direct vote of the people—it would 
mean the loss of deliberation, of patient consideration—but, on the 
other hand, no one whose mental arteries have not long since hard¬ 
ened can doubt that the proposed changes are needed when the legis¬ 
latures refuse to carry out the will of the people. The proposal is a 
method to reach an undeniable evil. Then there is the recall of public 
officers—the principle that an officer chosen by the people who is 
unfaithful may be recalled by vote of the majority before he finishes 
his term. I will speak of the recall of judges in a moment—leaA^e that 
aside—but as to the other officers I have heard no argument advanced 
against the proposition, save that it will make the public officer timid 
and alAA avs currying favor Avith the mob. That argument means that 
you can fool all the people all the time, and is an avowal of disbelief 
in democracy. If it be true—and I belieA T e it is not—it is less im¬ 
portant than to stop those public officers from currying favor Avith 
the interests. Certain States may need the recall, others may not; 
Avhere the term of elective office is short it may be quite needless; 
but there are occasions Avlien it meets a real evil, and provides a 
needed check and balance against the special interests. 

Then there is the direct primary—the real one, not the New York 
one—and that, too, the Progressives offer as a check on the special 
interests. Most clearly of all does it seem to me that this change is 
Avholly good—for every State. The system of party government is 
not Avritten in our constitutions, but it is none the less a vital and 
essential part of our form of government. In that system the party 
leaders should serve and carry out the will of their oaaui party. There 
is no need to shoAv hoAv far that theory is from the facts, or to rehearse 


THE EIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO EULE. 


5 


the vulgar thieving partnerships of the corporations and the bosses, 
or to show how many times the real government lies in the hands of 
the boss, protected from the commands and the revenge of the voters 
by his puppets in office and the power of patronage. We need not 
be told how he is thus intrenched nor how hard he is to overthrow. 
The facts stand out in the history of nearly every State in the Union. 
They are blots on our political system. The direct primary will give 
the voters a method, ever ready to use, by which the party leader 
shall be made to obey their command. The direct primary, if accom¬ 
panied by a stringent corrupt-practices act, will help break up the 
corrupt partnership of corporations and politicians. 

My opponents charge that two things in my program are wrong 
because they 'intrude into the sanctuary of the judiciary. The first 
is the recall of judges, and the second, the review by the people of 
judicial decisions on certain constitutional questions. I have said 
again and again that I do not advocate the recall of judges in all 
States and in all communities. In my own State I do not advocate 
it or believe it to be needed, for in this State our trouble lies not with 
corruption on the bench, but with the effort by the honest but wrong¬ 
headed judges to thwart the people in their struggle for social justice 
and fair dealing. The integrity of our judges from Marshall to 
White and Homes—and to Cullen and many others in our own 
State—is a fine page of American history. But—I say it soberly— 
democracy has a right to approach the sanctuary of the courts when 
a special interest has corruptly found sanctuary there; and this is 
exactly what has happened in some of the States where the recall 
of the judges is a living issue. I would far more willingly trust the 
whole people to judge such a case than some special tribunal—per¬ 
haps appointed by the same power that chose the judge—if that 
tribunal is not itself really responsible to the people and is hampered 
and clogged by the technicalities of impeachment proceedings. 

T have stated that the courts of the several States—not always but 
often—have construed the “ due-process ” clause of the State consti¬ 
tutions as if it prohibited the whole people of the State from adopt¬ 
ing methods of regulating the use of property so that human life, 
particularly the lives of the workingmen, shall be safer, freer, and 
happier. No one can successfully impeach this statement. I have 
insisted that the true construction of “ due process” is that pro¬ 
nounced by Justice Holmes in delivering the unanimous opinion of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, when he said: 

The police power extends to all the great public needs. It may he put forth 
in aid of what is sanctioned by usage, or held by the prevailing morality or 
strong and preponderant opinion to be greatly and immediately necessary to the 
public welfare. 

I insist that the decision of the New York Court of Appeals in the 
Ives case, which set aside the will of the majority of the people as to 
the compensation of injured workmen in dangerous trades, was intol¬ 
erable and based on a wrong political philosophy. I urge that in 
such cases where the courts construe the due-process clause as if 
property rights, to the exclusion of human rights, had a first mort¬ 
gage on the Constitution, the people may, after sober deliberation, 
vote, and finally determine whether the law which the court set 
aside shall be valid or not. By this method can be clearly and finally 
ascertained the preponderant opinion of the people which Justice 


6 


THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE. 


Holmes makes the test of due process in the case of laws enacted 
in the exercise of the police power. The ordinary methods now in 
vogue of amending the Constitution have in actual practice proved 
wholly inadequate to secure justice in such cases with reasonable 
speed, and cause intolerable delay and injustice, and those who stand 
against the changes I propose are champions of wrong and injustice, 
and of tyranny by the wealthy and the strong over the weak and the 
helpless. 

So that no man may misunderstand me, let me recapitulate: 

1. I am not proposing anything in connection with the Supreme 
Court of the United States, or with the Federal Constitution. 

2. I am not proposing anything having any connection with ordi¬ 
nary suits, civil or criminal, as between individuals. 

3. I am not speaking of the recall of judges. 

4. I am proposing merely that in a certain class of cases involving* 
the police power, when a State court has set aside as unconstitutional 
a law passed by the legislature for the general welfare, the question 
of the validity of the law—which should depend, as Justice Holmes 
so well phrases it, upon the prevailing morality or preponderant 
opinion—be submitted for final determination to a vote of the people, 
taken after due time for consideration. And I contend that the 
people, in the nature of things, must be better judges of what is the 
preponderant opinion than the courts, and that the courts should 
not be allowed to reverse the political philosophy of the people. 
My point is well illustrated by a recent decision of the Supreme 
Court, holding that the court would not take jurisdiction of a case 
involving the constitutionality of the initiative and referendum laws 
of Oregon. The ground of the decision was that such a question was 
not judicial in its nature, but should be left for determination to the 
other coordinate departments of the Government. Is it not equally 
plain that the question whether a given social policy is for the public 
good is not of a judicial nature, but should be setteled by the legis¬ 
lature or, in the final instance, by the people themselves? 

The President of the United States, Mr. Taft, devoted most of a 
recent speech to criticism of this proposition. He says that it “ is 
utterly without merit or utility, and, instead of being * * * in 

the interest of all the people, and of the stability of popular govern¬ 
ment, is sowing the seeds of confusion and tyranny.” (By this he, of 
course, means the tyranny of the majority; that is, the tyranny of 
the American people as a whole.) He also says that my proposal 
(which, as he rightly sees, is merely a proposal to give the people a 
real instead of only a nominal chance to construe and amend a 
State constitution with reasonable rapidity) would make such amend¬ 
ment and interpretation “ depend on the feverish, uncertain, and 
unstable determination of successive votes on different laws by tem¬ 
porary and changing majorities”; and that “it lays the ax at the 
foot of the tree of well-ordered freedom, and subjects the guaranties 
of life, liberty, and property without remedy to the fitful impulse of 
a temporary majority of an electorate.” 

This criticism is really less a criticism of my proposal than a crit¬ 
icism of all popular government. It is wholly unfounded, unless 
it is founded on the belief that the people are fundamentally untrust¬ 
worthy. If the Supreme Court’s definition of due process in rela¬ 
tion to the police power is sound, then an act of the legislature to 


THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE. 


7 


promote the collective interests of the community must be valid, if 
it embodies a policy held by the prevailing morality or a preponder¬ 
ant opinion to be necessary to the public welfare. This is the ques¬ 
tion that I propose to submit to the people. How can the prevail¬ 
ing morality or a preponderant opinion be better and more exactly 
ascertained than by a vote of the people? The people must know 
b iter than the court what their own morality and their own opinion 

is. I ask that you, here, you and the others like you, you the people, 
be given the chance to state your own views of justice and public 
morality, and not sit meekly by and have your views announced for 
you by well-meaning adherents of outworn philosophies, who exalt 
the pedantry of formulas above the vital needs of human life. 

The object I have in view could probably be accomplished by an 
amendment of the State constitutions taking away from the courts 
the power to review the legislature’s determination of a policy of 
social justice, by defining due process of law in accordance with the 
views expressed by Justice Holmes for the Supreme Court. But 
my proposal seems to me more democratic and. I may add, less 
radical. For. under the method 1 suggest, the people may sustain 
the court as against the legislature, whereas, if due process were 
defined in the constitution, the decision of the legislature would be 
final. 

Mr. Taft’s position is the position that has been held from the 
beginning of our Government, although not always so openly held, 
bv a large number of reputable and honorable men who, down at 
bottom, distrust popular government, and. when they must accept 

it, accept it with reluctance, and hedge it around with every species 
of restriction and check and balances, so as to make the power of the 
people as limited and as ineffective as possible. Mr. Taft fairly 
defines the issue when lie says that our Government is and should 
be a government of all the people by a representative part of the 
people. This is an excellent and moderate description of an oligarchy. 
It defines our Government as a government of all of the people by 
a few of the people. Mr. Taft, in his able speech, has made what 
is probably the best possible presentation of the case for those who 
feel in this manner. Essentially this view differs only in its expres¬ 
sion from the view nakedly set forth by one of his supporters, Con¬ 
gressman Campbell. Congressman Campbell, in a public speech in 
Xew Hampshire, in opposing the proposition to give the people real 
and effective control over all their servants, including the judges, 
stated that this was equivalent to allowing an appeal from the umpire 
to the bleachers. Doubtless Congressman Campbell was not him¬ 
self aware of the cynical truthfulness with which he was putting the 
real attitude of those for whom he spoke. But it unquestionably is 
their real attitude. Mr. Campbell’s conception of the part the Ameri¬ 
can people should play in self-government is that they should sit on 
the bleachers and pay the price of admission, but should have nothing 
to say as to the contest which is waged in the arena by the profes¬ 
sional politicians. Apparently Mr. Campbell ignores the fact that 
the American people are not mere onlookers at a game, that they 
have a vital stake in the contest, and that democracy means nothing 
unless they are able and willing to show that they are their own 
masters. 


8 


THE EIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO EULE. 


I am not speaking* jokingly, nor do I mean to be unkind; for I 
repeat that many honorable and well-meaning men of high character 
take this view, and have taken it from the time of the formation of 
the Nation. Essentially this view is that the Constitution is a strait- 
jacket to be used for the control of an unduly patient—the people. 
Now I hold that this view is not only false but mischievous; that our 
constitutions are instruments designed to secure justice by securing 
the deliberate but effective expression of the popular will; that the 
checks and balances are valuable as far, and only so far, as they 
accomplish that deliberation, and that it is a warped and unworthy 
and improper construction of our form of government to see in it 
only a means of thwarting the popular will and of preventing justice. 
Mr. Taft says that “every class ” should have a “ voice” in the Gov¬ 
ernment. That seems to me a very serious misconception of the 
American political situation. The real trouble with us is that some 
classes have had too much voice. One of the most important of all 
the lessons to be taught and to be learned is that a man should vote, 
not as a representative of a class, but merely as a good citizen, whose 
prime interests are the same as those of all other good citizens. The 
belief in different classes, each having a voice in the Government, has 
given rise to much of our present difficulty; for whosoever believes 
m tlie'se separate classes, each with a voice, inevitably, even though 
unconsciously, tends to work, not for the good of the whole people, 
but for the protection of some special class—usually that to which 
he himself belongs. 0 

The same principle applies when Mr. Taft says that the judiciary 
ought not to be “ representative ” of the people in the sense that the 
legislature and the executive are. This is perfectly true of the judge 
when he is performing merely the ordinary functions of a judge in 
suits between man and man. It is not true of the judge engaged in 
interpreting, for instance, the due-process clause—where the judge 
is ascertaining the preponderant opinion of the people (as Judge 
Holmes states it). When he exercises that function he has no right 
to let his political philosophy reverse and thwart the will of the 
majority. In that function the judge must represent the people or 
lie fails in the test the Supreme Court has laid down. Take the 
workmen's compensation act here in New York. The legislators gave 
us a law in the interest of humanity and decency and fair dealing. 
In so doing they represented the people, and represented them well. 
Several judges declared that law constitutional in our State, and 
several courts in other States declared similar laws constitutional, 
and the Supreme Court of the Nation declared a similar law affecting 
men in interstate business constitutional; but the highest court in 
the State of New York, the court of appeals, declared that Ave, the 
people of New York, could not have such a law. I hold that in this 
case the legislators and the judges alike occupied representative posi¬ 
tions; the difference was merely that the former represented us well 
and the latter represented us ill. Remember that the legislators 
promised that hiAv. and were returned by the people partly in conse- 
sequence of such promise. The judgment of the people should not 
have been set aside unless it were irrational. Yet in the I\ r es case 
the New York Court of Appeals praised the policy of the law and the 
end it sought to obtain; and then declared that the people lacked 
power to do justice. 


THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE. 


9 


Mr. Taft a gain and again, in quotations I have given and elsewhere 
through his speech, expresses his disbelief in the people when they 
vote at the polls. In one sentence he says that the proposition gives 
u powerful effect to the momentary impulse of a majority of an elec¬ 
torate and prepares the way for the possible exercise of the grossest 
tyranny.” Elsewhere he speaks of the “ feverish uncertainty ” and 
“unstable determination” of laws by “temporary and changing 
majorities”; and again he says that the system I propose “would 
result in suspension or application of constitutional guaranties ac¬ 
cording to popular whim,” which would destroy “all possible con¬ 
sistency” in constitutional interpretation. I should much like to 
know the exact distinction that is to be made between what Mr. Taft 
calls “ the fitful impulse of a temporary majority ” when applied to a 
question such as that I raise and any other question. Remember that 
under my proposal to review a rule of decision by popular vote, 
amending or construing, to that extent, the Constitution, would cer¬ 
tainly take at least two years from the time of the election of the leg¬ 
islature which passed the act. Now only four months elapse between 
the nomination and the election of a man as President to fill for four 
years the most important office in the land. In one of Mr. Taft’s 
speeches he speaks of “ the voice of the people as coming next to the 
voice of God.” Apparently, then, the decision of the people about 
the Presidency, after four months’ deliberation, is to be treated as 
“ next to the voice of God ”; but if after two years of sober thought 
they decide that women and children shall be protected in industry, 
or men protected from excessive hours of labor under unhygienic con¬ 
ditions, or wageworkers compensated when they lose life or limb in 
the service of others, then their decision forthwith becomes a “ whim,” 
and “ feverish,” and “ unstable,” and an exercise of “ the grossest 
tyranny,” and the “ laying of the ax to the foot of the tree of free¬ 
dom.” It seems absurd to speak of a conclusion reached by the people 
after two years’ deliberation, after thrashing the matter out before 
the legislature, after thrashing it out before the governor, after 
thrashing it out before the court and by the court, and then after full 
debate for four or six months, as “ the fitful impulse of a temporary 
majority.” If Mr. Taft’s language correctly describes such action 
by the people, then he himself and all other Presidents have been 
elected by “the fitful impulse of a temporary majority”; then the 
constitution of each State and the Constitution of the Nation have 
been adopted and all amendments thereto have been adopted by “the 
fitful impulse of a temporary majority.” If he is right, it was “the 
fitful impulse of a temporary majority ” which founded and another 
fitful impulse which perpetuated this Nation. Mr. Taft’s position is 
perfectly clear. It is that we have in this country a special class of 
persons wiser than the people, who are above the people, who can not 
be reached by the people, but who govern them and ought to govern 
them, and who protect various classes of the people from the whole 
people. 

That is the old, old doctrine which has been acted upon for thou¬ 
sands of years abroad; and which here in America has been acted 
upon, sometimes openly, sometimes secretly, for 40 years by many 
men in public and in private life, and, I am sorry to say, by many 
judges; a doctrine which has in fact tended to create a bulwark for 
privilege, a bulwark unjustly protecting special interests against the 


10 


THE EIGHT OE THE PEOPLE TO KULE. 


rights of the people as a whole. This doctrine is to me a dreadful 
doctrine; for its effect is, and can only be, to make the courts the 
shield of privilege against popular rights. Naturally, every upholder 
and beneficiary of crooked privilege loudly applauds the doctrine. It 
is behind the shield of that doctrine that crooked clauses creep into 
laws, that men of wealth and power control legislation. The men of 
wealth who praise this doctrine, this theory, would do well to remem¬ 
ber that to its adoption by the courts is due the distrust so many of 
our wageworkers now feel for the courts. I deny that that theory 
has worked so well that we should continue it. I most earnestly urge 
that the evils and abuses it has produced cry aloud for remedy; and 
the only remedy is in fact to restore the power to govern directly to 
the people, and to make the public servant directly responsible to 
the whole people—and to no part of them, to no “ class ” of them. 

Mr. Taft is very much afraid of the tyranny of majorities. For 25 
years here in New York State, in our efforts to get social and indus¬ 
trial justice, we have suffered from the tyranny of a small minority. 
We have been denied, now by one court, now by another, as in the 
bakeshop case, where the courts set aside the law limiting the hours 
of labor in bakeries—the “ due process ” clause again—as in the work¬ 
men’s compensation act, as in the tenement-house cigar factory case¬ 
in all these a'ncl many other cases we have been denied by small mi¬ 
norities, by a few worthy men of wrong political philosophy on the 
bench, the right to protect our people in their lives, their liberty, and 
their pursuit of happiness. As for “ consistency ”•—why, the record 
of the courts, in such a case as the income tax, for instance, is so full 
of inconsistencies as to make the fear expressed of “ inconsistency ” 
on the part of the people seem childish. 

Well-meaning, shortsighted persons have held up their hands in 
horror at my proposal to allow the people themselves to construe the 
Constitution which they themselves made. Yet this is precisely what 
the association of the bar of the city of New York proposed to do in 
the concurrent resolution which was introduced at their request into 
our legislature on January 16 last, proposing to amend the State con¬ 
stitution by a section reading as follows: “ Nothing contained in this 
constitution shall be construed to limit the powers of the legislature 
to enact laws,” such as the workmen’s compensation act. In other 
words, the New York Bar Association is proposing to appeal to the 
people to construe the constitution in such a way as will directly 
reverse the court. They are proposing to appeal from the highest 
court of the State to the people. That is just what I propose to do; 
the difference is only one of method, not of purpose; my method will 
give better results, and will give them more quickly. The bar asso¬ 
ciation by its action admits that the court was wrong, and sets to 
work to change the rule which it laid down. As Lincoln announced 
of the Drecl Scott decision in his debates with Douglas: “ Somebody 
has to reverse that decision, since it is made, and we mean to reverse 
it, and we mean to do it peaceably.” Was Lincoln wrong? Was the 
spirit of the Nation that wiped out slavery “ the fitful impulse of a 
temporary majority”? 

Remember, I am not discussing the recall of judges, although I 
wish it distinctly understood that the recall is a mere piece of machin¬ 
ery to take the place of the unworkable impeachment which Mr. 
Taft in effect defends, and that if the days of Maynard ever came 


THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE. 


11 


back again in the State of New York I should favor it. I have no 
wish to come to it; but our opponents, when they object to all efforts 
to secure real justice from the courts, are strengthening the hands 
of those who demand the recall. In a great many States there has 
been for many years a real recall of judges as regards appointments, 
promotions, reappointments, and reelections; and this recall was 
through the turn of a thumbscrew at the end of a long-distance rod 
in the hands of great interests. I believe that a just judge would feel 
far safer in the hands of the people than in the hands of those in¬ 
terests. 

I stand on the Columbus speech. The principles there asserted are 
not new, but 1 believe that they are necessary to the maintenance 
of free democratic government. The part of my speech in which I 
advocated the right of the people to be the final arbiters of what is 
due process of law in the case of statutes enacted for the general wel¬ 
fare will ultimately, I am confident, be recognized as giving strength 
and support to the courts instead of being revolutionary and sub¬ 
versive. The courts to-day owe the country no greater or clearer 
duty than to keep their hands off such statutes when they have any 
reasonably permissible relation to the public good. In the past the 
courts have often failed to perform this duty, and their failure is the 
chief cause of whatever dissatisfaction there is with the working of 
our judicial system. # One who seeks to prevent the irrevocable com¬ 
mission of such mistakes in the future may justly claim to be regarded 
as aiming to preserve and not to destroy the independence and power 
of the judiciary. 

My remedy is not the result of a library study of constitutional law, 
but of actual and long-continued experience in the use of govern¬ 
mental power to redress social and industrial evils. Again and again 
earnest workers for social justice have said to me that the most seri¬ 
ous obstacles that they have encountered during the many years that 
they have been trying to save American women and children from 
destruction in American industry have been the courts. That is the 
judgment of almost all the social workers I know and of dozens of 
parish priests and clergymen, and of every executive and legislator 
who has been seriously attempting to use government as an agency 
for social and industrial betterment. What is the result of this sys¬ 
tem of judicial nullification? It was accurately stated by the Court 
of Appeals of New York in the Employers’ liability case, where it 
was calmly and judicially declared that the people under our Re¬ 
publican Government are less free to correct the evils that oppress 
them than are the people of the monarchies of Europe. To any man 
with vision, to any man with broad and real social sympathies, to 
any man who believes with all his heart in this great democratic 
Republic of ours, such a condition is intolerable. It is not govern¬ 
ment by the people, but mere sham government in which the will 
of the people is constantly defeated. It is out of this experience that 
my remedy has come; and let it be tried in this field. 

When, as the result of years of education and debate, a majority 
of the people have decided upon a remedy for an evil from which 
they suffer, and have chosen a legislature and executive pledged to 
embody that remedy in law, and the law has been finally passed and 
approved, I regard it as monstrous that a bench of judges shall then 
sav to the people: “You must begin all over again. First amend 


12 


THE EIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO EULE. 


your Constitution [which Avill take four years] ; second, secure the 
passage of a new'law [which will take two years more] ; third, carry 
that new law over the weary course of litigation [which will take no 
human being knows how long]; fourth, submit the ay hole matter over 
again to the very same judges who have rendered the decision to 
which you object. Then, if your patience holds out and you finally 
prevail, the will of the majority of the people may have its way/' 
Such a system is not popular government, but a mere mockery of 
popular government. It is a system framed to maintain and per¬ 
petuate social injustice, and it can be defended only bv those who dis¬ 
believe in the people, who do not trust them, and, I am afraid I must 
add, who have no real and living sympathy with them as they strug¬ 
gle for better things. In lieu of it I propose a practice by which the 
will of a majority of the people, when they have determined upon a 
remedy, shall, if their will persists for a minimum period of - two 
years, go straight forward until it becomes a ruling force of life. I 
expressly propose to provide that sufficient time be taken to make 
sure that the remedy expresses the will, the sober and well-thought- 
out judgment and not the whim of the people; but when that has 
been ascertained, I am not willing that the will of the people shall be 
frustrated. If this be not a wise remedy, let those who criticize it 
propose a wise remedy, and not confine themselves to railing at gov¬ 
ernment by a majority of the American people as government by the 
mob. To propose, as an alternative remedy, slight modifications of 
impeachment proceedings is to propose no remedy at all—it is to bid 
us be content with chaff when we demand bread. 

The decisions of which we complain are, as a rule, based upon the 
constitutional provision that no person shall be deprived of life, 
liberty, or property without due process of law. The terms “ life, 
liberty, and property ” have been used in the constitutions of the 
English speaking peoples since Magna Charta. Until within the last 
60 years they were treated as having specific meanings; “ property ” 
meant tangible property; “liberty” meant freedom from personal 
restraint, or, in other words, from imprisonment in its largest defini¬ 
tion. About 1870 our courts began to attach to these terms new 
meanings. Now “ property ” has come to mean every right of value 
which a person could enjoy and “ liberty ” has been made to include 
the right to make contracts. As a result, when the State limits the 
hours for which women may labor, it is told by the courts that this 
law deprives them of their “liberty”; and when it restricts the 
manufacture of tobacco in a tenement, it is told that the law deprives 
the landlord of his “ property.” Now, I do not believe that any peo¬ 
ple, and especially our free American people, will long consent that 
the term “ liberty” shall be defined for them by a bench of judges. 
Every people has defined that term for itself in the course of its his¬ 
toric development. 

Of course, it is plain enough to see that in a large way the political 
history of man may be grouped about these three terms, “ life, liberty, 
and property.” There is no act of government which can not be 
brought within their definition, and if the courts are to cease to treat 
them as words having a limited, specific meaning, then our whole 
Government is brought under the practically irresponsible supervi¬ 
sion of judges. As against that kind of a government I insist that 


THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE. 


13 


the people have the right and can be trusted to govern themselves, 
this our opponents deny and the issue is sharply drawn between us. 

If my critics would only show the same sober judgment of which 
they declare the people at large to be incapable, they would realize 
that my proposal is one of moderation and common sense. I wish to 
quote the remarks of William Draper Lewis, dean of the Law School 
of the University of Pennsylvania: 

To a lawyer the most interesting’ suggestion Col. Roosevelt lias made is to 
allow the people, after consideration, to reenact legislation which a court deci¬ 
sion has declared is contrary to some clause in the existing State constitution. 

Anyone who has been asked to draft specific amendments to State consti¬ 
tutions will hesitate to condemn, without serious consideration, the sugges¬ 
tion made by Col. Roosevelt. To take a concrete instance: The New York 
Court of Appeals declared the workmen’s compensation act passed by the New 
York Legislature unconstitutional, as depriving in its operation the employer 
of his property without due process of law. A number of amendments to the 
New York constitution, designed to validate a compensation act, have been 
drafted, and it is not unlikely that one of them will be adopted. Personally, 
one or more of these amendments having been shown to me, I can not but feel 
that constitutional amendments designed to meet particular cases run the dan¬ 
ger of being so worded as to produce far-reaching results not anticipated or 
desired by the people. Col. Roosevelt’s suggestion avoids this difficulty and 
danger. If a persistent majority of the people of New York State want a 
workmen’s compensation act, they should have it. But in order to obtain it 
they should not be driven to pass an amendment to their State constitution 
which may have effects which they do not anticipate or desire. Let them pass 
on the act, as passed by the legislature, after a full knowledge that their 
highest court has unanimously expressed its opinion that the act is contrary 
to the constitution which the people at a prior election have declared to be 
their fundamental law. 

I may not always approve of what the persistent majority wants. I might 
sometimes think the measure unwise. But that doesn’t alter the right of that 
majority to enforce its will in government. The Roosevelt idea, it: seems to 
me, supplies an instrument by which that majority can enforce its will in the 
most conservative way. It makes explosions unnecessary. 

I would have been very proud to have been the author of that plan, although 
I want to emphasize the fact that it involves no new principle, only a new 
method. 

I don’t mind saying, however, that I think it unfortunate that it should 
have been proposed by Col. Roosevelt. He is a man of such marked charac¬ 
teristics and his place in the political world is such that he arouses intense 
enthusiasm on the one hand and intense animosity on the other. Because of 
this the great idea which he has propounded is bound to be beclouded and its 
adoption to be delayed. It is a pity that anything so important should be 
confounded with any man’s personality. 

As regards the dean’s last paragraph, I can only say that I wish 
somebody else whose suggestions would arouse less antagonism had 
proposed it; but nobody else did propose it, and so I had to. I am 
not leading this fight as a matter of aesthetic pleasure. I am leading 
because somebody must lead or else the fight would not be made at 
all. 

T prefer to work with moderate, with rational, conservatives, pro¬ 
vided only that they do in good faith strive forward toward the light. 
But when they halt and turn their backs to the light and sit with the 
scorners on the seats of reaction, then I must part company with 
them. We, the people, can not turn back. Our aim must be steady, 
wise progress. It would be well if our people would study the his¬ 
tory of a sister republic. All the woes of France for a century and 
a quarter have been due to the folly of her people in splitting into 
the two camps of unreasonable conservatism and unreasonable radi¬ 
calism. Had pre-Revolutionary France listened to men like Turgot 


14 


THE EIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE. 


and backed them up all would have gone well. But the beneficiaries 
of privilege, the Bourbon reactionaries, the shortsighted ultracon¬ 
servatives, turned down Turgot; and then found that instead of him 
they had obtained Robespierre. They gained 20 years’ freedom from 
all restraint and reform at the cost of the whirlwind of the red 
terror; and in their turn the unbridled extremists of the terror in¬ 
duced a blind reaction; and so, with convulsion and oscillation from 
one extreme to another, with alternations of violent radicalism and 
violent Bourbonism, the French people went through misery toward 
a shattered goal. May we profit by the experiences of our brother 
republicans across the water and go forward steadily, avoiding all 
Avild extremes; and may our ultraconservatives remember that the 
rule of the Bourbons brought on the Revolution, and may our would- 
be revolutionaries remember that no Bourbon was ever such a danger¬ 
ous enemy of the people and of freedom as the professed friend ot 
both, Robespierre. There is no danger of a revolution in this coun¬ 
try; but there is grave discontent and unrest, and in order to remove 
them there is need of all the wisdom and probity and deep-seated 
faith in and purpose to uplift humanity we have at our command. 

Friends, our task as Americans is to strive for social and industrial 
justice, achieved through the genuine rule of the people. This is our 
end, our purpose. The methods for achieving the end are merely 
expedients, to be finally accepted or rejected according as actual 
experience shows that they work well or ill. But in our hearts we 
must have this lofty purpose, and we must strive for it in all earnest¬ 
ness and sincerity, or our work will come to nothing. In order to 
succeed we need leaders of inspired idealism, leaders to whom are 
granted great visions, who dream greatly and strive to make their 
dreams come true; who can kindle the people with the fire from their 
own burning souls. The leader for the time being, whoever he may 
be, is but an instrument, to be used until broken and then to be cast 
aside; and if he is worth his salt he will care no more when he is 
broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in 
order that the victory may be won. In the long fight for righteous¬ 
ness the watchword for all of us is spend and be spent. It is of little 
matter whether any one man fails or succeeds; but the cause shall 
not fail, for it is the cause of mankind. > We, here in America, hold 
in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years; and 
shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve 
is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of men. If on this 
new continent we merely build another country of great but unjustly 
divided material prosperity, we shall have done nothing; and we 
shall do as little if we merely set the greed of envy against the greed 
of arrogance, and thereby destroy the material well-being of all of us. 
To turn this Government either into government bv a plutocracy of 
government by a mob would be to repeat on a larger scale the lament¬ 
able failures of the world that is dead. We stand against all tyranny, 
by the few or by the many. We stand for the rule of the many in 
the interest of all of us, for the rule of the many in a spirit of courage, 
of common sense, of high purpose, above all in a spirit of kindly jus¬ 
tice toward every man and every woman. We not merely admit, 
but insist, that there must be self-control on the part of the people, 
that they must keenly perceive their own duties as well as the rights 


THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE. 


15 


of others; but we also insist that the people can do nothing unless 
they not merely have, but exercise to the full, their own rights. The 
worth of our great experiment depends upon its being in good faith 
an experiment—the first* that has ever been tried—in true democracy 
on the scale of a continent, on a scale as vast as that of the mightiest 
empires of the old world. Surely this is a noble ideal, an ideal for 
which it is worth while to strive, an ideal for which at need it is 
worth while to sacrifice much; for our ideal is the rule of all the 
people in a spirit of friendliness brotherhood toward each and every 
one of the people. 


o 
















